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William Whittingham Lyman, Jr.
William Whittingham Lyman Jr, (January 3, 1885 - November 8, 1983), also known as Jack Lyman, was an American poet and a distinguished academic in the field of Celtic studies. Life Youth and education Lyman was born in Napa co., California, the son of Sarah A. (Nowland) and William Whittingham Lyman, and the grandson of Theodore Benedict Lyman. His father built the Lyman winery, now known as the El Molino winery. In 1905, while an undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, Lyman, Jr., was convinced by Charles Mills Gayley to achieve an academic major in English literature. Upon completion of his Master's degree, Gayley arranged for him to receive a university fellowship to travel to the University of Oxford to study Celtic languages with Sir John Rhys. After a year at Oxford, Lyman spent 2 years at Harvard University studying the Irish language. Career He returned to the University of California, Berkeley to take up a post as instructor in celtic (then a tenure-track position) within the English department in 1911-1912. In the same year, celtic appears on the list of approved majors in the College of Letters and Science and in the following year Lyman is named also as "Graduate Adviser" in celtic. There he remained until 1922, whereupon he moved to Southern California and taught until his retirement. Private life In 1921 he married poet Helen Hoyt. After retirement he and his family moved back to the family home at Bayles Mills, St Helena. Commenting on his long life, Ruth Witt-Diamant declared him to be the "oldest living poet". Writing He was a poet of some renown, as mentioned by Josephine Miles: "In a legendary time in the Greek Theater in Berkeley at the end of the first world war, poets gathered around the visitor Witter Bynner with a great sense of inventiveness and praise. Names I have heard from that time were Genevieve Taggard, Hildegarde Flanner, Eda Lou Walton, David Greenhood, Jack Lyman."Genevieve Taggard, To the Natural World. Ahsahta Press, 1980, preface. ISBN 0-916272-13-3. Publications Poetry *''Figs from California''. Berkeley, CA: Lederer, Steet, & Zeus, 1922. *''California Wild Flowers in Verse and Picture''. Los Angeles, CA: Lymanhouse, 1939 *''Poems in Three Moods''. Los Angeles: College Press, 1948. Non-fiction *''The Lyman Family''. Napa, CA: Napa County Historical Society, 1980. Edited *''Today's Literature: An omnibus of short stories, novelettes, poems, plays, profiles, and essays'' (edited with Vernon Rupert King). New York & Cincinnati, OH: American Book, 1935. ISBN 0-8486-6628-3 Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:William Whittingham Lyman, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, July 17, 2018. See also *List of U.S. poets References * * * Fonds His papers are held at the University of California, Berkeley Bancroft BANC MSS 71/150 c. Notes External links ;Books *William Whittingham Lyman at Amazon.com ;About *William Whittingham "Jack" Lyman Jr. at Find a Grave Category:1885 births Category:1983 deaths Category:American poets Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:People from Napa County, California Category:20th-century poets Category:American academics Category:English-language poets Category:Poets